Network, learn, ask a question, meet other folk, get fed - these are all things that happen at user group events. These events are a really great opportunity to socialise in an informal learning experience - if you want your own exposure then come and do a 1 - 5 minute nugget in front of your peers.

Remember to tell your friends and the people you work with; make sure you register as soon as you can.

5.30pm – 6:00pm Registration and networking

Meet and greet.

6:00 – 6:30pm Round Table discussion and Nuggets - ALLTake stock and get the latest news in the SQL Server field. This is also a great opportunity to ask any burning questions you have, may be a problem at work.

It's also a great opportunity to share your knowledge and gain exposure in the industry by giving a short 1 - 6 minute "nugget" demo/tip.

6:30pm - 7:30pm - Indexing Strategies with Chris McGowan

Indexing Strategy - A sound Indexing strategy is paramount to database performance. There is no “one size fits all” solution and your indexing strategy should definitely not be built on guess work. In this session we will take a look at indexes, maintenance, the tools at our disposal and using demos we will see how we can make more educated decisions to optimise performance and tune our indexing strategy.

Chris McGowan:

Hailing from Manchester, Chris is a Database Administrator for Appliances Online with 10 years experience in the IT industry, 5 of those as a production DBA. He has worked with every version of SQL Server since SQL Server 2000 and specialises in High Availability and preparing for disaster. Chris blogs athttp://sqlserver365.blogspot.co.uk/and can also be found on Twitter@ckwmcgowan.

This talk will discuss the advantages of an incremental approach to data loading in the data warehouse environment, and review the options provided by SQL Server 2012 for implementing this pattern. We'll take a closer look at SQL Server Change Data Capture from the database engine perspective, then look at how the new Change Data Capture components in SQL Server 2012 Integration Services make it easier to incorporate this technology into your ETL processes.

Gavin Campbell:

SQL Server Professional with fifteen years of experience of Microsoft SQL Server development and administration across all versions from SQL Server 6.5 to SQL Server 2012, currently working on Data warehouse and Business Intelligence projects using Microsoft technologies.